wide awake dreams
by Broken Elsewhere
Summary: But you are not a child - Road-centric


**disclaimer: ** -Man belongs to Katsura Hoshino, the idea for this story was inspired by the books by Catherine Webb, and the story is mine.

**note: **I love Road, and it occurred to me that we still don't know how old Road is, or why she's still young. This is my theory, inspired by the books by Catherine Webb.  
**note2: **More experimentation with the writing style so it probably makes no sense at all. This probably doesn't conform in any way to what's happening in recent chapters.  
**note3: **If you can guess how old Road is in this story, you get a (illusionary) cookie.

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"Are you hungry?" the strange girl with the crown of scars asks. She's perched on the top of the fence, the ruffles of her skirt blowing in a non-existent breeze. The girl pauses, because Mother said not to talk to strangers, and this girl in her fine clothes and gray skin and golden eyes is so _strange_ it makes shivers run down her spine. She watches the girl's little purple shoes dangle high above the ground.

"It's candy," she says, and smiles with all her teeth, "You can have it. Wouldn't that be nice?"

The girl feels like refusing, because there's this feeling of a price, a very big price _but_…the hunger gnaws at her belly, and she'd missed sugar so much, and she snatches the offered piece and stuffs it into her mouth. The girl on the fence looks delighted.

The candy warms her all the way from her toes to deep in her bones, and she can almost hear a little tune going round and round in her head…(_she's so tired - )_…

So the child sleeps, and dreams, and Road is happy too, because when the song plays, she can steal the dreams, and eat the dreams, and never have to grow old _and_ –

Road closes her eyes and hums along and thinks of all the time that has gone by.

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And she remembered. She remembered the girl who dreamed of love, and she remembered the boy who dreamed of blood.

And she remembered the child who made dreams that tasted like snow, and she remembered the child that dreamed in black and white.

And she remembered the child who dreamed of a family, grasping and crying out, and all her desires rose up –

And so she took them.

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Sometimes (_always_) she gets bored and goes to watch the children, as they sleep in their neat little beds in neat little rows in a little hospital in a city with the sky blotted out from the smoke of the factories. She knows these children, knows their little hungry faces and dirty cheeks and filthy clothes and _desperation_.

But most of all, she knows their dreams. They aren't quite sleeping these children, you see, but they're not quite dead either. Their eyes are closed, their breathing shallow, and sometimes (_once in a very long time_) they dream.

Something has been stolen from them…something taken.

Only Road knows what it is, because the hunger in her whispers, in a deep place within her that wants and wants –

Tonight it can have.

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And she remembered the War in Crimea, and she remembered the little boys and girls crawling through the rubble.

And she remembered the children that dreamed of monsters, and she remembered the children that dreamed of death.

And she remembered how their dreams stretched out and all their grief and tragedy danced across its panes –

She gave them peace.

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Once, when she was _(younger than young) _more naïve, she tried to make the grown-ups dream.

But their dreams were all wrong, all gray skies and distorted noise and monsters stalking children on its edges, like there was something broken inside. Only the Earl still dreams like a child, because the Earl is like her, and he _remembers_.

Adults cannot dream like children can _(they've forgotten how to)_. Adults, _adults _have seen things that children would never even dream of, could never possibly imagine, more than the monsters and shadows and things that creep in the night.

So Road takes the dreams of children, because she likes their dreams, because she's a child too, and they are the only ones who are ever really alive.

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And she remembered how they marched off to fight Napoleon, and she remembered how six million died.

And she remembered the girl who dreamed of running, and she remembered the boy who dreamed he'd found his father.

And she remembered the child who dreamed that they could win, and she remembered the child who dreamed of sin.

It was so nice when they dreamed with her.

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"What are you?" a man asks, blood streaming from his lips like the red of coats and candy. Road smiles, and the Exorcist screams.

She licks the tip of a candle. She's hungry again, and she could almost eat his dreams. But they're not good enough, and Road _needs _the children's dreams. Without the children –

Road hums her little tune and doesn't think of that.

Road needs their dreams, not dreams like the ones children have when they fall asleep, but something…_alive_. Their living breathing wide-_awake_ dreams. All their dreams of tomorrow, dreams of what they will become, of all the things children dream of, of mother and father and kindness and hope.

_That's _what's been stolen from them, and now they can't _(ever) _wake up. That is what the children have that grown-ups don't, and _that _is what Road wants.

Road eats the children's dreams and is satisfied. For a time.

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And she remembered how the sky turned black when the machines came, and she remembered the little boys and girls who fell in.

And she remembered the children that dreamed of pain, and she remembered the children that made dreams all in blue.

And she remembered the children that dreamed of freedom, still searching, even now, for a way out.

But they would never find it.

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One day Allen turns towards, and asks, with the first hint of knowing in his eyes, "How old are you, Road?"

She laughs, because it's such a strange, funny _(so funny) _question. "Would you like me to tell you your dreams, _Allen~?_" she responds, "Would you like me to tell you your nightmares?"

Because Road sees all these things, rising to the surface of his skin, dancing across his face. _So easy_, she thinks, and claps her hands. "You see, the bigger you get, the more nightmares you have, and you forget all the dreams you ever had. I think your mind is full of terrifying things."

Allen flinches, and Road leans closer, and lowers her voice. "Your dreams aren't pretty anymore, _Allen~. _They're like spiders crawling down the insides of walls."

She licks her lips. "I wish I could eat your dreams Allen, if they were pretty, so I'd never grow old. But all you dream of is boring adult things," she tells him, as his face goes pale, and he looks like he's going to be sick.

Allen is an adult in a child's skin, all the opposites of her. And that, Road thinks, is _no good._

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And she remembered how the French stormed the Bastille, and she remembered how the guillotine glinted in the sun before it came falling down.

And she remembered the girl that dreamed of revenge, and she remembered boy that dreamed of blood running in the streets.

And she remembered the child that dreamed of a better life, and she remembered the child that made dreams of a world that should be.

Their dreams tasted like candy.

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"I'm not afraid of you," Allen says, even as he watches the rows of children sleeping (_not-sleeping_), and she knows that Allen has forgotten how to dream.

"You're not afraid of _me_," she says, "You're scared of your friends being dead, of their blood on your hands, and it's _all your fault_." She watches all the emotions that fly across his face, and _knows. _

"Poor Allen, with no one left, no one left to turn to, because you couldn't stop it, even if _maybe_ it wasn't your fault, was it, _Allen_? But you should've stopped it, should've saved them and protected them like you _swore_ you would," she whispers, "Such a _boring _nightmare."

Allen looks sickened, and Road could almost feel sorry for him, but then he glares at her and says in disgust, "You're not a child, are you."

"What an adult nightmare, _Allen_. Only grown-ups are scared of things they can't control. Children don't get scared of those things, see?" she says, gesturing, "They don't understand how it could ever be possible."

"Your dreams are _so _old, _Allen~_. I want all the glory and color…but you don't have that anymore."

_(Isn't that just sad?)_

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And she remembered how the men in Boston refused to pay their taxes, and she remembered the shot fired around the world.

And she remembered the children that dreamed of going to war, and she remembered the children that dreamed of the end.

And she remembered the children that dreamed for a new world, and she remembered the children that dreamed of hope.

And the dreams of children are foolish.

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Road has the dreams of children _(you are not a child)_ and she looks like a child, and talks like a child, and giggles like a child, but…

_( - You are not a child. What are you?)_

What defines a child? Because Road has eaten the dreams of children for so long that she cannot be anything _but_ a child, a hungry child, a child that would never, _ever _grow old. So Road poisons the children and watches them go to sleep, deep, endless sleep, and is happy, again.

And the adults whose dreams she takes become part of _her _dream. She takes away their dreams, their nightmares – breaks them – she take away their hopes and fears. Just like Bookman Jr. – except he still had something left in him, and that had made it so much more _fun~._

Road could eat Allen's dreams, his terrible, terrible dreams, and make him empty but –

_Not yet_.

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And she remembered the war that lasted seven years, and she remembered the wars that came before it.

And she remembered girl that dreamed of a mother, and she remembered the boy that dreamed he could live forever.

And she remembered the child who dreamed and remembered the real world, but it was too late by then, because she was with Road now.

Where she was meant to be.

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And if Road had it her way, if the adults could dream like children could, if their thoughts weren't _boring _and filled with all the things they didn't want to do, then maybe, _maybe_, she wouldn't be hungry anymore.

But adults are good for nothing, except boring stories and dead dreams, not like the thoughts of children that she uses to keep young forever, and never fear growing old.

Because when she was _(before she wore a crown of scars) _little, there was so much fear, all the fear that children couldn't understand. So Road made it _stop._

Like the children who sleep on forever, who never see sorrow or pain or any other thing that waits at the end, when they are old and bitter. She is a true Apostle of God, and she has given them serenity.

And Road is peaceful too, in her own endless, perfect dream.

And no one could ever ruin it.

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And she remembered when the royalty were still powerful, and she remembered when they killed them.

And she remembered the children that dreamed of hunger, and she remembered the children that dreamed of paradise.

And she remembered the children that dreamed that could fly, and she remembered the children whose dreams were lies.

It was all such a long time ago.

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Road is a child _(not-not-not) _and wants to be _(forever and ever)_.

So she floats through the world, through time and the ages, and steals the thoughts of children, the colors and the dreams and the stupidity and the ignorance, and all that is which makes a child. She steals their childhoods, preys on the childish thoughts that aren't hers.

_(But they should be - )_

Because children are greedy for all they cannot have, and Road _is (not-not-not) _a forever-child.

Inside her, where the hunger lurks, there is an empty space, but no matter how many dreams she devours, it will never be filled.

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And she remembered when the cities were small, and she remembered when the land was big.

And she remembered the girl that dreamed of air that didn't smell like smoke, and she remembered the boy that made dreams that tasted of tears.

And she remembered the child that dreamed to be king, and she remembered the child that made dreams of stars.

She misses them.

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She knows herself, as she hums her little song and plays with her dolls. She has dreamed of the past, and of the present, and of the future, even if the dreams belonged to children who dreamed them long before she ever did.

_(They should have been hers - )_

Because deep down, deep, deep down Road's thoughts have become pretty cruel nothings, her mind an empty black and white shell that she has to fill with stolen dreams because she's lost all the dreams she's ever had.

She wants them with a hunger she cannot describe, but she cannot have them. She knows this.

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And she remembered when it was just the Earl and her, and she remembered when they waited and waited.

And she remembered the children that dreamed they were alone.

And she was kind to them, and dreamed with them.

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Road is old, so old, even if she doesn't look that way.

_(Old like the world, like the Earl, like the stars) _

Old enough for her body to wither, for her flesh to rot, to turn into ashes and die. Old enough to have watched, wide-eyed and scared, her parents die, and be buried and turn to skeletons six feet underground.

Old enough to have grown up, thrown flowers on their graves, old enough to have seen the world and all the truly perfect cruelty and beauty that men do, old enough to understand that life is not like the stories, not like the beautiful dreams where a child could be happy forever.

So very, very old, a lonely old crone too scared to ever grow up.

And if one day, if the Destroyer of Time comes, with the Heart and the Innocence, with his sword and strength, and finally, truly kills her, she will turn to dust. All the dreams she has stolen, all the youth she has consumed will float to the surface and rip out of her skin, drifting away into the places where the sky was still blue and leave her behind.

And in that withered husk that was a little girl, a long, long time ago, there will be nothing left but a shell, and the memory of the dreams she has forgotten, just an old woman in a child's skin.

But she was never going to die.

_(Right?)_

_fin_

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**note4: **Please review.


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